Madurai
meenakshi temple is a historic Hindu temple located in the south side of river Vaigai] in
the temple city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is dedicated
to Parvatiwho is known as Meenakshi and her consort, Shiva, named here as
Sundareswarar. Madurai is an old city. The temple complex consists of 14
gopurams.
The original
temple was built by kulashekara pandya, but the entire credit for making the
temple as splendid as it is today goes to the Nayaks. The gopuras has an height more than 50 m. Each gopuram is a multi-storeyed structure, covered with thousands of stone figures
of animals, gods and demons painted in bright hues
There
is a golden lotus tank; this temple tank is an ancient tank where devotees take
bath in the holy water. The area is the meeting place of Tamil sangam , the academy
of poets. There is an oonjal mandapam,
every Friday the idols of meenakshi and sundareswara, are seated on the swing
and by singing a hymn, swing made to move to and fro.
HALL OF THOUSAND PILLARS
The "Aayiram Kaal Mandapam" or
Thousand Pillar Hall contains 985(instead of 1000) carved pillars.
Each pillar in the hall is a carved monument of the Dravidian sculpture. The
more prominent among the carved figures are those of Rati, Karthikeya, Ganesha.
There are lot more exciting halls and
sculptures inside the temple. This is one of the oldest temple.
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